Iron Roses
by SmurfLuvsCookies
Summary: Gajeel hadn't only broken Levy's body the night of the attack. He'd broken her spirit too. It only made sense that the hands which had dismantled her in the first place would also be the ones to handle her repairs.
1. Iron Roses

_**Author's Note**: Hey there! This is just a little one-shot I came up with one night when I was half asleep, and I thought you readers might like it. This takes place right after the Phantom Lord arc, when Gajeel is first accepted into the guild. Hope you enjoy!_

_**Disclaimer**: I do not own Fairy Tail. It is the sole property of Hiro Mashima_.

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><p><strong>Iron Roses<strong>

**by: SmurfLuvsCookies**

Levy still got nightmares.

They began a few days after she got out of the hospital, besieging her slumber nearly every night for two weeks. Levy remembered procrastinating at night, reading, writing, doing something, anything to keep her from falling asleep just so she wouldn't have to endure the contorted, kaleidoscopic images of the attack. Not only did the memories harass her in her waking hours, but they haunted her sleep as well.

Jet and Droy said they sometimes got nightmares too, but Levy knew that their bad dreams, while they might have been frightening, didn't torment them like her's did. The Iron Dragonslayer had taken them down when they tried to protect her. They weren't conscious for most of it. They wouldn't have seen or felt or heard the things she had.

His menacing red eyes were a common occurrence in her dreams, glowing like hot coals of hate and spite. She remembered his sharp, bloody grin, and his deep laugh. It hadn't made sense to her why he was laughing; pain was not funny. It _hurt_, and she couldn't understand why Gajeel Redfox was laughing while he made her hurt. After her mind was cleared of the fuzzy influence of pain, she knew that it was because he was a sadist; he was evil. He enjoyed others' suffering.

And his big hands, which were so like the hands of Elfman or Gray or Natsu, hands that she associated with safety and warmth; she remembered those. But _his _hands had caused her agony, something that she knew none of her friends would ever do. Now Levy flinched when someone reached out to her. Levy didn't feel safe anymore.

Gajeel Redfox had broken bones, and he had broken skin, and he broke blood vessels that became bruises the next morning. But Levy's body wasn't the only thing that was broken that night. He'd also broken her heart when he crucified Jet and Droy on the tree like some kind of sacrifice to a cruel deity. He wounded her pride when she was reduced to pleading and begging for him to stop hurting them. He mauled her sense of security when he completely overwhelmed them and Levy was forced to come to the realization that there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. He shattered the way she viewed the world, for Levy had always been a firm believer in finding the good in anyone. She didn't think that there was any good in Gajeel Redfox.

In summary, the Iron Dragonslayer had broken Levy's spirit.

Her bodily injuries were long healed, but Levy wasn't sure how long it would take for her to reassemble her inner self. She felt tainted now more than ever, when all she wanted was to be wholesome again.

And just when the healing process was underway, just when Levy was starting to feel well again, Makarov let him in.

Levy knew the Master meant well. He'd explained all of his reasons to the guild, and they were perfectly acceptable ones. In fact, Levy agreed with him on a logical level. But that didn't stop the cold dread that filled her bones, or the booming fear that roared in her ears when she saw him sitting in the guild. _Her _guild, with _her _friends, in _her _world. This all belonged to her, and even though Levy wasn't a selfish person, she did not want to share this with Gajeel Redfox. She did not want him encroaching upon her territory, because she did not want him to hurt her again.

Levy laid in her bed thinking about all this, recovering from a nightmare of anguish and scarlet eyes and bloodied hands. She silently hoped that none of the others had heard her screaming. It would not do to appear weak now. Levy was tired, so tired, of being small and weak. It was time for her to get stronger.

Repeating this thought in her head over and over, shutting out the echoes of chilling laughter that lingered in her mind, Levy closed her eyes and went to sleep.

_Levy shuddered at the cold touch of his fingers on her stomach, feeling exposed and violated and utterly humiliated as he carefully traced Phantom Lord's insignia on her skin. The paint gave off a metallic scent like blood...or was that actually blood? Levy couldn't tell. The world tipped and swirled around her, blinking in and out of focus._

_"There," he growled, the very sound of his voice sending shivers down her spine "You're all done. You should be fuckin' proud to wear this sign. Fairy trash like you ain't worthy of it." __Levy flinched as he leaned in closer. He had a peculiar aroma, almost like the way cold smelled in winter. It wasn't an unpleasant scent, but that didn't seem right to Levy. Weren't bad people supposed to smell bad?_

_She quaked when he cupped her chin in his hand, a gesture that would have been gentle and intimate in any other situation. Levy felt a tear run down her cheek as he turned her head, forcing her to look at him. He wasn't ugly. He was intimidating, certainly, but he wasn't ugly. She gazed into his bloodred eyes, two bright rubies in the night, filled with loathing and contempt. Yes, those eyes were ugly. _

_"You scared, shorty?" he asked her in a whisper. _

_Levy didn't answer. __Gajeel tipped his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed, like she had just told a very funny joke. Then he grinned at her with a savage joy that reminded her of a wolf._

_"You should be."_

Levy awoke with a violent gasp, bolting out of bed with wild eyes. Her heart pounded in her chest with the power of a drum. Her knees were like jelly; they buckled, and pain shot up her legs when she landed on the hard floor. She wrapped her arms around herself, curling up into a ball. Tentatively she reached down and slipped her fingers under her shirt, feeling the smooth skin of her belly. The Phantom Lord mark was long gone, but it had taken days of vicious scrubbing in the shower to rid of it. Then she had to endure the turgid red sore where she'd removed the first layer of skin trying to get it off.

Levy almost screamed when she heard a sound at her door, but she caught herself and managed to cut it off at the small shriek prey makes when it knows it's been cornered by a predator. _It's probably just one of the girls_, she thought, but that didn't stop the flow of blood that roared in her ears, or the rapid _thump-thump, thump-thump_ of her heart. Quietly she crawled over to the door and stood up before it, undoing her newly acquired locks and taking a deep breath before she opened the door.

No one was outside the dark corridor, but she did notice something at the foot of her door. Curiously she leaned down to inspect it, squinting in the limited light that the moon provided from the windows.

It was a bouquet of roses, each one pristine and beautiful. Levy blinked, then smiled. The bouquet perfect, exactly the gesture of kindness she needed right then. She brushed her finger along the soft petal of a blossom, and her blood ran cold.

Each and every rose was made of iron.

Levy recoiled as if she'd just been electrocuted. There was only one person who had this degree of command over such an element. She sank to the ground and stared at them, emotions crashing within her like a tropical storm.

Gajeel Redfox had been here. Here, in Fairy Hills, just outside her door. Outside her _home_. The very notion paralyzed her with fear. She half expected him to slither out of the shadows and laugh while he struck her again. Panic clawed up her throat and threatened to evolve into a scream of utter terror, but she swallowed it down. Her hands shook, so she balled them into fists.

Flowers. Gajeel Redfox didn't need flowers to scare her. Levy didn't think he was discreet enough for that anyway; he seemed more straightforward with his wrath. And flowers were usually a good thing, a gift, a present.

An...apology?

Levy wasn't sure. Carefully she ran her finger along a petal, and she marveled at the smooth the surface of the iron, at the elegant craftsmanship. It would have taken anyone, even the Iron Dragonslayer, a good deal of time to accomplish this. Not the kind of dedication that simple sadism would warrant. Besides, Levy didn't sense any hostility from the iron roses. In fact, the bouquet was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

Somewhere deep inside of her, Levy felt a part of her broken self fit back together.

She smiled tenderly as she caressed the sparkling rose. It only made sense that the hands which had dismantled her to begin with would also be the ones to handle her repairs. Hands that didn't seem so menacing now that she saw they were just as capable of beautiful creations as they were of painful destruction.

Levy took the roses inside and placed them on the kitchen counter, far away from her bed but, yes, still in her home. Then she crawled back under the blankets and stared up at the ceiling, hugging a pillow to her chest and willing herself to relax. As her eyelids drooped, heavy from fatigue, she thought to herself, _Maybe there's some good in Gajeel after all_.

And she fell into a dreamless sleep.


	2. Iron Heartstrings

_**Author's Note:** So, this originally supposed to be a one-shot but I've gotten several requests for another chapter in Gajeel's POV, so here we are. Thank you to all who favorited and reviewed, and thank you for encouraging me to add more to the story. :)_

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><p><strong>Iron Heartstrings<strong>

**by: SmurfLuvsCookies**

Gajeel's heart was as cold and unyielding as the iron he manipulated. He never imagined that he would join the very guild that had been the bane of his existence. He never thought he would take the master's advice and earn their trust. He never considered what would happen if he began to genuinely respect and even love Fairy Tail. And never would he have believed that the fairies would understand his twisted way of showing approval and reciprocate in their own way.

As the weeks flew by, Gajeel saw changes in the fairies where he was concerned. They were upset when he joined but their outrage quickly subsided into cool awareness, and then to lukewarm acceptance. Gajeel surprised himself by being pleased with this change of heart, though he would never admit it. After the expulsion of Phantom Lord he'd been lost, just as he'd been when Metalicana left him. Makarov Dreyar, the Head Fairy of all people, found him. Even now, Gajeel wasn't entirely sure if he was satisfied with this or not.

Slowly Gajeel noticed that the fairies were counting him among their friends. When they talked about their guild, he was included in that sentiment. He had grown to be a part of them; a part that stewed in the same corner every day with a dark cloud over his head, but a part nonetheless.

There was one person, though, that still hadn't embraced him with their heart yet, whether it be in friendship or hate. The short blunette bibliophile held him at arm's - no, at _room's _- distance. Whenever she crept passed, he always smelled bitter fear coming from her.

Honestly, Gajeel didn't blame Levy McGarden for cowering from him the way she did. Usually he detested whimpering people, but he knew for a fact that Levy had not started out that way. He had made her a coward; he had done that with his own two hands. Some people in the guild remarked that she would have been among the first to greet him, had the circumstances been different. Others suggested that he apologize to her for the attack. Most hinted that he should just stay the hell away from her, because even though he was now their companion he was nothing close to the precious pearl that Levy McGarden was.

He watched her from the shadows when she didn't know he was there. Gajeel recalled his first day at the guild, the way he had been momentarily blinded by the shine of the fairies. They were too much, too bright. They were sunlight in his eyes, and he had to blink away the black spots that obscured his vision. But Levy McGarden did not give off the hot, violent shine of her comrades. She glowed, gently, steadily, softly, casting balmy warmth at her huge rectangular table littered with books. Levy was not the sun on a hot summer day. She was the illumination of a candle in a dark room, and that made her all the more treasured.

Gajeel felt guilt pluck at his iron heartstrings when he came to the realization that he was responsible for blowing out that candle.

Soon he found himself collecting sheets of iron late at night when he came home from the guild. Instead of eating them, he began working with them, twisting and cutting and melting and forging until he had the correct shapes. He let his confused emotions go into the work. He didn't use his magic, but then again he didn't need to. Gajeel knew how iron worked, how it bent and moved and reacted to heat. He _was _iron.

Every night for over two weeks, Gajeel went straight to his small, smoldering forge outside and spent long hours hunched over the flames, manipulating the metal with his fingers like no blacksmith could do. He scowled in concentration as he worked, sweat running down his bare chest, his unruly hair tied up in a leather strip, until his muscles cramped up from being in one postion for so long.

Sometimes he thought about the short bookworm while he worked, but most of the time he let his mind drift off into that lonely realm between the earth and the clouds that is so often visited by artists. However, whenever he finished and leaned back with a sigh, pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes in exhaustion, he always saw her face printed on the back of his lids.

A mistake. That was what his actions toward her were: a mistake. Gajeel had made plenty of mistakes in his lifetime, too many to count, but this was the first that he actually regretted.

Finally, after nearly a month of preparation, his masterpiece was complete. It was a bouquet of iron roses, each more perfect than the last. Every petal was parchment-thin and pristine like the scales of a silver dragon, the mock-membrane webbed with minuscule veins and ridges. These petals formed full, curved blossoms that gracefully raised their heads up toward the heavens. The stems were thin and gently arched over the lip of an iron vase, hooked briar and jagged leaves entangled into one thorny mass. The vase itself was a work of art, decorated with detailed engravings of soaring dragons and climbing ivy.

Gajeel was supremely proud of it, and in any other circumstance he would have kept his greatest work for himself. But he knew in the bottom of his cold-iron heart what this sculpture was made for, _who _it was made for.

Fairy Hills was a short walk from the guild. Gajeel knew it was protected by spells and such, but he'd caught the master shooting him more than a few curious looks as Gajeel observed Levy. Gajeel had no doubt that the old geezer knew exactly what he was up to.

His theory proved true when, the night after the roses were complete, he came to the threshold of Fairy Hills' property and saw Makarov standing there. In the light of the full moon, his angular face was thrown in sharp relief and his hair glinted like white wings on his head. Gajeel said nothing as he came to a stop in front of the master and stood still under his careful scrutiny. He felt the force of the old man's gaze like a punch in the gut. It was as though freezing water had replaced his blood. The old geezer could see through him as though he was made of glass. Gajeel had no doubt that Makarov could easily decipher his every intention, his every obsession, his every sin if he so chose. That made him the most formidable of opponents, more so than even Jose.

The master gave him a single nod and stalked off in the opposite direction without a backward glance. Gajeel recalled the old man's words when he'd come to recruit the Iron Dragonslayer: _"You hurt my children, and that is something I will never forgive you for." _But, somehow, Gajeel didn't want Makarov to forgive him when it seemed like everyone else had. He wanted someone to still hold him responsible for his actions, someone who could look him in the eye and tell him what he'd done wrong. He needed someone to hold him accountable.

He needed a parent.

Gajeel shook his head as he continued down the path to Fairy Hills, a smirk crossing his features. "Crazy old geezer," he whispered to himself. Down at the bottom of the hill, Gajeel could have sworn he heard a bark of laughter.

It wasn't hard to find Levy's apartment. It smelled like an old library, of paper and ink and must. Gajeel stood outside her door for a moment, holding the roses in his hands, alert for anything suspicious. Inside he heard subtle sounds of restlessness: the squeak of a mattress, the thrashing of blankets, a small whimper caused by a nightmare._ I wonder what she's dreaming about, _Gajeel thought sarcastically, with a bitter smile that looked more like a grimace. He paused and shuffled his feet. Perhaps this wasn't a good idea after all.

Gajeel could never remember clearly what happened next. He supposed that maybe he accidentally knocked his foot against the door or something, because his hypersensitive ears picked up a cut-off shriek from inside and heard footsteps. Cursing under his breath, the Iron Dragonslayer deposited the roses at the front door and ducked into the shadows of the dark corridor.

He heard the click of many locks and held his breath as Levy emerged from her dwelling, looking up and down the hallway for some sign of the noise. Her wild blue hair was even more of a mess than usual, sticking up in every direction just like Gajeel's had a tendency to do in the early morning hours, freed from the confines of the colorful bandannas she sported. Her small feet were bare, framed by the folds at the hems of her too-big pajamas. She wiggled her toes on the cold floor anxiously, a small frown puckering the space between her two thin eyebrows when she failed to find the source of the slight commotion.

Then she looked down and spotted the roses. Gajeel would never forget the smile that lit up her face, or the way it made his insides squirm in a not-so-unpleasant way. She sat down on the ground and tentatively reached out a hand toward the blossoms.

Gajeel watched as her smile became a mask of horror, a terror so profound that it was like a stab in the chest. She recoiled as though he'd deposited a dead animal at her doorstep instead of an extravagant gift. Gajeel swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth as he scowled at the wall. The roses were no less beautiful than they had been moments before when they'd produced such a smile from her, but the sheer fact that they were in any way synonymous with him is what made the sculpture a monstrous abomination. Even from his hiding spot across the hall he could smell fear coming off of her in palpable waves, clotting out the river of other Levy-aromas that gushed from the open door.

_She will never accept me._

Just as the thought crossed his mind, Levy once more reached out and caressed the petal of a rose. Gajeel watched in morbid fascination as her features again shifted into something softer, something gentle and kind. It wasn't the radiant delight he'd procured earlier. It was more like...appreciation. Levy stood and hoisted the heavy roses into her arms, raising her eyebrows at the weight as she carefully tottered back inside, closing the door with her foot. Gajeel listened for a second, but he didn't hear her redo the locks.

Silently he stepped into the moonlight streaming from the window. He was speechless. She'd actually taken the roses _inside her home. _Her sanctuary. Gajeel was oddly pleased with himself, strutting down the corridors of Fairy Hills with something of a swagger in his step. Of course her second reaction had dampened his enthusiasm a bit, but in the end she had still accepted his apology. Perhaps, in the future, he could put that first brilliant smile on her face again.

Gajeel's heart was as cold and unyielding as the iron he manipulated. But iron becomes warm and malleable when held over fire. In time, the iron begins to glow like the flame itself.

Even if that flame is a candle.


End file.
